The present invention relates generally to the manufacture of plant-growing devices, for example jardinieres and troughs intended to receive plants for forming so-called indoor gardens, and one object of the invention is to provide an improved plant-growing device comprising a water reservoir and means for regulating the supply of water to the plants.
The problem of the transfer of water to the plants rooted in the earth or compost or other rooting medium contained in the known plant-growing devices, particularly flowering plants and foliage plants, has always been very troublesome and has led to the creation of various devices comprising reservoirs of water for automatically supplying water to the rooting medium in which the plants are growing.
In practice there already exist jardinieres of which the lower parts constitute water reservoirs and in which the rooting medium rests upon grilles fixed horizontally at some distance above the water level. In these known jardinieres the supply of the water to the plants is effected by means of bands of cloth made of synthetic fibres and of a length exceeding that of the grilles, and on the lower surface of the latter the cloth is stuck over a part of its length, the part which is not stuck dipping down into the water in the reservoir. By means of this dipping part of the cloth and by capillarity the water moistens the whole of the cloth and impregnates the rooting medium disposed upon the grille, thus permitting the supply of water to the plants.
However, with the known devices the supply of water is a function of the capillary power and the quality of the cloth and regulation of the water supply is not possible, which can conduce to deprivation of the plants which have a great need of water, for example ferns or the like, or too much water may be supplied to plants which do not need a lot of water, for example cacti.
Therefore another object of the present invention is to mitigate these disadvantages.